The Voices
by gallowsCallibrator
Summary: It wasn't a secret that Lysander was a bit… off. He always had a far-off look in his eyes like he was a million miles away and when he did speak it was of the most peculiar things. But soon Lorcan realized that there was something seriously wrong with his brother. And the horrors that Lysander needs to face might push him to do something horrible. Rated M for dark themes.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**

**A/N: This was written for daysandweeks's challenge, "Next Gen Head Canon Challenge". All reviews are greatly appreciated and DFTBA!**

Lorcan couldn't explain it. It was almost as if… He envied his brother; he wanted to be his brother. It just didn't make sense. Not to Lorcan and not to anyone he tried to explain it to (which was very few people). Lorcan envied all of the attention his brother got because of his condition and sometimes even resented him because of it. Even so, his brother was still his best friend and nothing could ever tear the two of them apart.

It wasn't a secret that Lysander was a bit… off. He always had a far-off look in his eyes like he was a million miles away and when he did speak it was of the most peculiar things. After not uttering a word for a week, he would out of nowhere start ranting about Nargles and Blibbering Humdingers and Crumple-Horned Snorcacks. Of course he had inherited that from his mother, but he was worse. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night crying over a bad dream. Of course this wasn't unusual for small children, but he claimed that even when he was awake that they were still there, perched on the edge of his bed or peering at him from outside his window. In the daytime he would break down and start sobbing and crying about monsters only he could see. Lysander said that they had red and bloody faces with teeth longer than his arm. And as his twin, Lorcan knew hat he wasn't faking it. He knew that Lysander actually saw these horrible creatures and didn't know what to do about it. Lorcan feared for Lysander.

Luna and Rolf Scamander had taken young Lysander to see countless doctors- both wizarding and muggle- to try and cure him but none could do anything to help. Some prescribed pills or tonics, others diets and injections. None of them worked though. The horrors kept coming back day after day, night after night.

When the Scamander twins were eight years old, Lysander once whispered to Lorcan in the middle of the night when both the parents had gone to sleep. He said, "I'm not the only one in my head. There are people in there, whispering to me and telling me what to do. They are my friends and their names are Miriam and Aaron. Miriam gets mad sometimes. She tells me that I'm dumb, or ugly, or something like that. And Aaron always calms her down. I wonder why they're in there sometimes. But I know that they're nice usually. But you can't tell Mum or Daddy about them, 'kay?"

"'Kay." replied Lorcan a bit hesitantly.

Lysander promptly fell asleep after that and left Lorcan awake and thinking about what his brother said. _There were people in his head,_ Lorcan recounted. Although he was young he knew that wasn't normal. But he didn't really worry about it then, he just figured that it was another one of his brother's quirks.

The next morning at breakfast, Lysander broke down crying again. The twins' mother and father assumed that it was the monsters he sees again, but Lysander figured it was something different. It was the people, the voices that went by the names or Miriam and Aaron. But keeping his promise to his brother, Lorcan didn't say anything.

Later in the day when the two boys were playing in the garden, after Lorcan had made sure that his father wasn't paying attention he went over to Lysander and whispered, "This morning it was the voices, right? Why did they make you cry?"

A look of pure panic swept across Lysander's face before he replied. "I, um, don't wanna talk about it," he mumbled.

"Okay," Lorcan replied simply and they went back to playing in the tall and overgrown grass.

Over the months Lysander continued to see the dream demons in the night and the monsters in the daytime. He mentioned the voices to his brother no more. Still, Lorcan knew that they hadn't gone away. Call it twin's intuition or whatever you will, but Lorcan knew exactly what was happening with his brother. His brother, Lysander Scamander, was insane. No normal person could see creatures from nightmares come to life or hear voices of strange people in their heads.

One night Lysander was in the room that he shared with his brother alone. Lorcan could here the sound of a voice coming from behind the door and stopped to listen before going into the room. It seemed that Lysander was talking to himself, as if he was speaking all parts of a conversation. His voice remained the same when he spoke aloud the different parts of the conversation, but it was clear what parts of the conversation actually came from Lysander and which from the voices in his head.

"No, get out of my head! I don't want you in there anymore!" cried Lysander in the voice of a scared child, definitely himself.

"What are you talking about? We live here along with you and we won't get out that easily, just because you tell us to, you little bastard." Lysander's voice sounded deeper, more masculine when he said this.

"Yes, Aaron is right. We live here as much as you do and you just telling us to get out won't make any difference." This voice sounded almost female, strict and overbearing.

"No! I hate you, you tell me bad things. I hate you both so much and I want you both to die!" The little-boy voice was back again. There was a thumping sound from inside the room, as if the child were striking himself in an attempt to rid himself of the voices plaguing his mind.

The deeper voice laughed a deep, hearty laugh. "If you wish us dead then that would only be killing yourself, Lysander Scamander, for we are you. We share a brain and a voice and a body. If you kill us you kill yourself. Aren't I right, Miriam?" Yet the voice quivered because the person from whom the voice came was repeatedly hitting himself in the head, sure to leave bruises.

"Of course you are. So if you wish us to go away them by all means, go right ahead. But let me warn you that the only way to get rid of us is to get rid of yourself. If that really is what you want then go ahead. We're waiting."

"Maybe I will! You're no better than the monsters that I saw. You always tell me that I shouldn't live anymore, that I deserve to die. Well I guess your wish will be granted because I can't stand to live with you anymore!" The little boy was screaming now. If his parents hadn't been out of the house running errands then they were sure to be running up to the boy's room and taking him to see a doctor.

Then, any voices coming from the room stopped and instead the sound of a relentless sobbing came from the room. Lysander did what all children did in the face of hopelessness and despair: he cried. Lorcan outside the door was scared out of his wits and didn't know what to do. He wanted to help his brother but didn't know how. He was also terrified of the voices in his brother's head, Miriam and Aaron. If they could control Lysander's words, who knows if they can control his actions as well? Although Lorcan loved his brother desperately, he didn't know what to do. So he ran. He ran down the stairs and out the front door, past the garden of dirigible plums, jumped over the small bubbling creek and into the woods. He kept running until his feet were numb and his lungs were burning, begging for air. When he finally slowed down and eventually stopped, the small cottage that was occupied by his family was just a speck in the distance. He was only nine years old and had never been off the property alone, and had no sense of direction. All he knew was that he was scared and he was alone. Lorcan was terrified at what his brother might do to himself, and also about what the people in his head might do to him.

Lorcan stayed in the woods until the night when he decided he was hungry and began to walk back to his home. On the way there, he saw a small figure on the horizon, just a shadow in front of the setting sun. As Lorcan neared the figure, he saw that it was his brother, Lysander. Lysander didn't know that his brother was there and thought that he was far enough away from the house that he could cry freely without being heard. There were burning-hot tears streaming down his face and in his hand was his mother's wand that he had stolen from her handbag. He had heard about a few harmful spells from young wizarding children that lived near the Scamanders and had remembered one that would do what he wanted. Lysander tentatively raised the wand up to his head where the voices seemed to be coming from. Tears were still rolling down his cheeks.

Realizing what his brother was going to do, Lorcan changed his walk into a sprint as he ran towards his brother. Lysander opened his mouth to whisper the spell that would end his life but before the words could come out of his mouth a form tackled him and knocked him to the ground, his mother's wand being flung a few feet away.

"What the hell was that?" Lysander screamed when he saw who had attacked him.

"You can't do that! You'll be fixed, I promise, but only if you come home. We can get rid of Miriam and Aaron for you but only if you come home with me. Okay, Lysander?" Lorcan tried to sound as convincing as possible. His brother was his one true friend in the world and to lose him would be to lose everything.

"It won't work. I've tried everything, but this is the only way to get them to leave forever. They're me and I'm them, so this is just what needs to happen. I need to die if I don't want to have bad people in my head anymore. I'm so sorry Lorcan; I just need to do this. Please forgive me."

"No. If you do that to yourself, I'll hate you forever. You can't die, I won't let you!" By this time Lorcan was crying along with his brother, shamelessly and angrily. "If you off yourself, I will never forgive you. Please come home with me."

Lysander, instead of replying, just shook his head solemnly. He tried to walk over to where the wand was lying in the grass but Lorcan jumped in front of him, blocking the way.

"Get out of my way!" yelled Lysander.

"No, not if you'll kill yourself. Are you bloody insane?"

"Yeah, actually I am. I'm not right in the head and we all know that, so I just need to do this before I hurt you or Mum or Dad any more."

"Never." said Lorcan grimly, and before he could react Lysander began to charge at him, pushing him out of the way. Lysander reached the wand of hawthorn before his brother did.

"I'll finally get rid of you, you monsters. I can finally be free from you and your cruel words," he yelled as loud as he could and then, the final words that he ever said came out of his lips. He pointed the tip of the wand at his temple as he whispered, "Avada Kedavera."

A flash of green light shot out from the tip of the wand and struck the nine-year-old in the forehead. A moment later he collapsed to the soft earth, the overgrown grass acting as a pillow for his small head. The young boy looked so fresh, so young and innocent, there on the ground. Lysander's face was in a placid expression, his bright blond hair pushed away from his face to reveal every curve of his face. His high and angled cheekbones, his small ski-slope nose, his soft and pink lips.

Before Lorcan knew what he was doing, he was sprinting over to where his brother lay. To the boy he looked nearly like a rag doll that had carelessly been tossed aside. Lorcan knelt down beside his brother and wept. Wept for all of the memories that they shared, for all of the pain and agony that the young boy needed to go through, and most of all the moments that were in store for them that, now, would never happen.

Lorcan Scamander stayed like that for over an hour crying and remembering and regretting. When it was completely pitch-black outside and the stars were beginning to emerge into the inky blackness, Lorcan used all of his strength to pick up his brother's dead body and take him back to the house a mile away.

Even in his brother's death, there was something that Lorcan envied about his twin brother. Lysander knew exactly whom he was, where he stood in the world unlike Lorcan. Lysander knew what was expected of him and could fit everyone's image that they had of him- something that Lorcan had been struggling with for years. So, even though Lysander had gone insane and killed himself to get rid of the voices in his head, Lorcan wished that he and Lysander could trade places. All Lorcan wanted was to know who he was and maybe if he had been born insane he'd be able to do just that.


End file.
